


I'll Be Your Mirror

by liquidmeasure



Series: Vampire Boyfriends [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Classical Music, Inspired by Music, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidmeasure/pseuds/liquidmeasure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don’t want to talk about walking corpses and sisyphean tragedy. Let’s wander. Let’s eat!” He pulls Zayn forward, over the cobblestones, through the dark. “The city is being reborn around us and you’ve been holed up so far away from me for so many decades. I want to show you everything. I want to climb to the top of it and look down and dedicate it all to you.”</p><p>A Ziall Vampire Love AU for Halloween. </p><p>I've been wanting to write this since I watched Only Lovers Left Alive earlier this year, so if parts of it seem familiar, that's why. I basically took a Jim Jarmusch movie and made it about Ziall. Sue me!<br/>(Wait actually don't sue me. Please.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Be Your Mirror

_There are a whole lot of references in this fic and I touch on a lot of history (THANKS, GOOGLE) so if you wonder about any of it OR IF I GOT IT SUPER WRONG, feel free to hit me up over on my[tumblr ](http://drownedindeniall.tumblr.com). This fic goes all over the place, literally and figuratively, so if I really terribly bonered up any of the languages, please let me know that too._

_If you like to listen to mixes while you read, I have one[here](http://8tracks.com/liquidmeasure/i-ll-be-your-mirror). I would HIGHLY recommend it, since a lot of the songs and artists are directly referenced and it might help to flesh things out. Special forever unending gratitude and love to my best friend [Jamie](http://feelingshulk.tumblr.com), who has every song ever on her computer and uploaded all the tracks for me. Also thanks to Jamie for just existing. She's my mirror. _

 

* * *

 

 

It starts with a persistent throb in the back of his skull. A dull ache. Muscles tensing. Constriction in your throat. He has hazy memories of what it was to be a child, to be sick, burning with fever, his mother’s hand on his cheek. It feels like that at first. Then the hunger comes and that feeling is absorbed into the ache and becomes pain and everything else is eclipsed. Blood is all there is or ever was.

 He never understood what it was to be hungry before he changed. Sensations from before, the things he might have felt, seem hazy and dull in comparison to the ache. The animal drive. The desperate pull. After, when he woke up alone, his throat burning, screaming for his mother, he understood that he was dead and he’d never felt more alive. He let his hunger drive him for centuries. He was a husk, then a predator, then a ghost.

And then there was Niall.

 

**New York, May 1966**

_Z,_

_New York in the Spring! I wish you could see...the smart coats and pearls and the pretty women wearing their hair long. It feels like a collision. A paradox! Bright lights and dark corners and artificial heat and the ghost of winter in the air. The past and the future existing simultaneously, scratching and biting and struggling for dominance. It’s a liminal state. I’m just living in it! Ha!_

_If you’d like to know where I stand, I will tell you that as a man of some learning and experience, I firmly believe that the future always wins out. I heard some months ago that we’ll be on the moon soon. Isn’t that just the most absurd thing? I’ve always wanted to go to the moon. Turns out it’s a lot farther off than we used to think, but still. We’d do well there, don’t you think? It seems like a lovely climate. And so quiet. I wager you’d love it._

_I walked past a man on the street yesterday, just before dawn as I was hurrying back home. He was drunk and his walk was crooked and he was whistling, high and clear, and I knew the tune. It was one of Frederic’s. A prelude. You remember the one? I’m whistling it now, can you hear? Hold the paper close. Close your eyes. I’ll see next time we talk. I’ll have you sing it back to me. I wonder if you could._

_I saw a movie last week. A double feature in a little playhouse uptown. It was an absolute hoot. Vampires and macabre bats and demon possession, and again with the coffins! I’m beginning to think we might try it once. (Try it, he said. You might like it.)_

_Enclosed you will find a freshly-pressed copy of a record I’ve had my fingers all over these past few months. Don’t peel the cover, you’ll lower the value!_

_Also sending a photo, taken with a very nifty camera I picked up out here. It’s mad, babe. An entire dark room in a little box you hold in your hands. That’s Lou on the left, me on the right, obviously._

_You would love what they’ve got going on out here, Zayn. I swear it. I’ve been staying up with Lou and to hear him sometimes it’s like having you here with me again. All this talk of minimalism and repetition and empty space. It’s like I’m back in Paris, watching you play, dragging you out to the cafes...so maybe you’re right. Nothing’s every destroyed, really. Nothing changes. It just cycles, burns, is reborn. Again and again._

_Let’s hope so. I’d love to see you again soon._

_N_

 

**Stockholm, November 2010**

 

It feels like snow when he wakes up, just after sundown. He climbs out of bed reluctantly and shuffles out to the living room, peering out the curtains at the street. The air is so clear. The beam of the street light under his window illuminates the cobble stones and cast the block in stark relief. White light and black shadow.

He walks to the kitchen and retrieves a glass. He pulls a dull metal thermos from the fridge, carefully measuring out just a couple ounces. He catches a rogue drop with his finger and brings it to his mouth absently, leaving his finger between his lips for a moment, running his tongue over the smooth cool flesh of his hand, the blood metallic and bitter in his mouth. He returns the canister to the icebox and lets the door swing shut, lingering for a moment with his fingers in his mouth. There’s a photo tacked there, its edges browned and peeling up off the white enamel. He closes his eyes.

He can feel his teeth pushing out, waking up. Responding to the sensation of flesh against his lips. He lowers his hand, then downs the glass in one quick pull, closing his eyes. The ache subsides and for a moment he feels warm, and far away, and electric through his whole body. Then it’s gone and it’s just him again. Cold and still and naked in the light of his kitchen. Alone.

He stands there for a moment, checking in. Rolling that word around. Testing its shape. Alone. Is it nagging at him? Is it hard and bitter? Is it soft? Is is sweet? He can’t tell these days. Things have become a little confused, which is an indicator in itself.

He spends the early evening playing through tracks from the previous week, jotting down notes and pecking at the piano. He presses his forehead to the top of the case and closes his eyes and tries to remember a melody. Something from a long time ago. He wrote it down, he thinks. Maybe in a red notebook. He takes a drag of his cigarette and places it back on the rim of the ashtray, perched on the edge of the piano bench. He wishes Niall were here. Niall would remember the day, he would know. He would remember the melody and what Zayn was wearing and the weather and he would remember which notebook. Red? Or Orange? He pauses and considers his desire. What does he miss? He’s not sure.

He picks up his cigarette again and walks to the shelf. It’s full of notebooks. All sizes and shapes and colors and he thinks that maybe he should organize them. As it is, he just navigates by sight and by feel. Old. But not too old. Leather? He plucks a soft leather volume from the right top shelf. Thumbs through the first few pages. Italy, 1805. No. Too old. He shoves it back into the shelf, nowhere near it’s previous home. He grabs another. Brown leather. Leafs through the pages. London. 1923. He’s about to shut it and place it back on the shelf when a loose piece of paper slips out, fluttering toward the floor. He intercepts it as it descends, moving it up where he can see it, detached curiosity. Oh.

It’s tea-stained. Not just the browning of age but actual tea. Someone’s spilled their drink on the paper, in little splotches. Zayn smiles to himself. The handwriting is Niall’s.

_Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada,_

_De tus manos color de furioso granero,_  
_Tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas,_  
_Quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra._

_Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura,_  
_La nariz soberana del arrogante rostro,_  
_Quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas_

His head swims for a moment and he suddenly feels overcome by a wave of emotion. He remembers the last time he held this piece of paper, sitting in a café in London, rubbed raw and tired and angry at the world. Creatively bankrupt. Barely moving. He wondered if Niall could feel it in his letters, the dark turn his thoughts had taken. Niall has always made a point of respecting Zayn’s boundaries. Keeping his tone jovial and light. Giving him the space he needs. But there were times when he would slip, write just the thing that would push Zayn over the edge ( _I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair...)_ leave him with his heart open wide, begging Niall to come home. ( _bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.)_

Zayn slips the paper back into the book and sets it back on the shelf. He walks to the door, takes his coat off the rack and tugs it over his shoulders as he lets himself out.

 

 

**Mallorca, December 1838**

 

“I believe I’ve just begun to accept the absolutely demoralizing reality of the situation at hand.”

“Mmmm?” Niall is lying on the floor, propped up on his elbows and sorting the playing cards fanned out in his hands. “And what’s that, madame?”

“It is going to rain.”

“I think you mean it _is_ raining.” He plucks a jack from the middle and moves it to the end, tucking it in next to a queen. “For someone with such a gift for language, your grasp on conjugation is atrocious.”

A protruding tongue, a haughty sigh.

“You didn’t let me finish, did you? You Irishmen...always in a hurry. And the _mouth_ on you. I’ve just realized and accepted that it is going to rain. Forever.”

“Ah!” Niall collapses to the floor in faux-agony. “Then we’ll be playing this awful game for an eternity and you’ll take me for all I’ve got.” He rolls onto his back, his hands folded over his chest. “Better to end it all now, I think.”

“So dramatic!”

“Just leave me to die...”

“You can’t die here, Monsieur Horan. You would be resigning yourself to an eternity on this island, a spectre, haunting this damp tomb of a monastery, wandering the orange groves at night. Anyway, think of the children. They’ll be bored out of their little skulls without you.”

“Have Zayn and Frederic tend to them once I’m gone and after you’ve run off with all my worldly possessions. They’ll do a lovely job.”

“Oh god.” Her laugh is far from lady-like, sharp and explosive and just a little cruel. It is one of the things Niall first noticed and appreciated about her. “They’d be better off raised by wolves. Or even the nasty superstitious locals.”

The melody they’ve grown accustomed to peters out and stops entirely then. There’s a cough, soft and muffled, and the scrape of a chair moving across the floor.

“Darling?” Aurore unfolds her legs from under her and leans forward, eyeing Frederic across the room, where he’s up and shuffling around the piano.

“It was a joke, dear, you know the children love you.” She’s met with a pleasantly blank stare. Frederic runs his hand through his hair absently and raises a hankerchief to his mouth, coughing quietly into the fabric. He smiles blearily at Aurore, his face confused but full of affection, looking for all the world like a man who’d just risen amiably from his own coffin. Niall can’t help but laugh. It’s so familiar.

“Where is yours tonight, then?” Niall looks up, breaking his gaze away from Frederic, who’s made his way back to the piano and folded himself onto the bench, long fingers coaxing a slow melody from the keys.

“Hmmm? Ah...he wanted to walk.”

“In all this?” She waves her hand in the general direction of the out of doors, making a sour face. “He’s a bit of a lunatic, isn’t he? He’ll make himself sick.”

Niall shrugs and laughs quietly. “He is a lunatic, yes. But he’s tougher than he looks. He’s just...” he waves his hand around near his temple. “Sensitive. Needs his time, like.”

Aurore looks over at Frederic again, her brow knit.

“They do sometimes, don’t they?”

Zayn arrives not long after, as if summoned. He’s soaked to the bone, his hair coal black and slick with rain and his wet skin glowing in the candle light. He is carrying something over his shoulder, large and dark and dripping, and he sets it gingerly by the door to focus on removing his boots.

“Zayn?” Niall stands. His eye is drawn by movement, something shifting in the wet black mass Zayn has deposited on the floor. “Did you have a nice walk?” his voice measured, questioning.

Zayn pulls one of his boots off, then the other, and looks up at Niall through his dark lashes, his face apologetic.

“I just...” he shrugs. “He was about to toss them in the water. I...couldn’t stand to think of it...Couldn’t stand to see them struggle. I gave him a few coins, for his trouble.”

Aurore has risen from her seat and is hovering at Niall’s elbow now. She bends over what Niall recognizes now as a cloth sack, working at the drawstring. She pulls the top open and makes a small noise of surprise, her hand flying up to her mouth, then glances up at Niall, laughing.

“You weren’t jesting when you said sensitive. He’s downright soft.” She reaches into the sack and comes out with a tiny mewling grey kitten, small enough to fit in her hand. Zayn just stands there, looking slightly embarrassed and thoroughly soaked and Niall shakes his head, smiling softly.

“Oh Zayn.”

“I just couldn’t...”

“I know.” He reaches down, running a finger along one wet brow. “You just couldn’t.”

They have to get the children out of bed, of course. They put out a bit of cream and watch the kittens amble around on the carpet, Niall spread out on the floor with the children, coming up with names and inventing stories about each mewling ball of fur. Zayn installs himself at the piano, playing a slow melody while Frederic stands in the center of the room, glancing one way and the other as if straddling two worlds. He watches the children, his handkerchief at his mouth, his eyes a little pained.

“Such vile cruelty...that men would be capable of killing something so small and helpless.”

“Helpless and _hungry_ , darling.” Aurore dips her finger in the cream to coat it and offers it to the smallest kitten, now nestled in her skirt, sucking at her fingertip greedily. “They’re small and soft and adorable and they are mouths to feed. A person must make a choice I suppose. Cruelty now, swift and final, or a more protracted cruelty further down the road…”

“They are each a little life. And innocent.”

“You are so soft, Frederic...” She gazes down at the kitten, stroking his fur, her voice quiet. Frederic eventually shuffles back to the piano and sits, fitting himself in next to Zayn on the bench, picking up the melody Zayn had been toying with, responding to and building on it. Niall watches them, bent over the keyboard, their postures mirroring one another.

“Soft...” She almost whispers it, and maybe he wasn’t intended to hear. When he looks up, he sees Aurore watching him. “I wonder sometimes how he even exists in this world. A world that seems so hard and cruel and sharp. And him with no hard edges to speak of. I wonder how he hasn’t been torn apart by it already.”

Niall scoops up a kitten and presses it against his lips, brushing them lightly against the fur. He considers for a moment, then puts his teeth around the animal, biting down gently. He could fit the whole thing in his mouth, it’s so tiny. He withdraws the kitten, picking a piece of fur from his lip.

“Well, he has you, I suppose. You’ve a hard edge or two to spare.” He smiles wickedly.

She rolls her eyes.

“You and me both I suppose. Do I need to take that away from you?” Niall pulls the kitten into his chest.

“No you do not.” He’s quiet for a moment. Then, “It takes hardness...you know. Loving someone like him.” Niall studies the two men at the bench, practically folded into each other now, like conjoined twins, swaying slightly back and forth, lost in the melody. “It takes sharp edges and roughness and noise and discomfort. I think without that he’d be lost.” Niall taps the side of his head. “Lost in here. In the labyrinth.”

“I wonder sometimes, though...if my edges are too sharp. If I’ll tear him apart someday. He’s so delicate.” She laughs fondly, and perhaps a little bitterly. “You know I courted him.”

Niall waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Do tell.”

“I dressed in my finest hat and tails. I wrote him long romantic missives by candlelight. I haunted his favorite shops and parlors. I wooed him as if he were a lovely young maiden. I made him blush...not that it’s difficult.”

“It seems to have worked.”

“It seems, yes. And yet, he’s never been able to abandon this idea that it’s me who needs protecting. Like he’s bound to safeguard my honor.” She makes a rough noise in the back of her throat. “It’s what he requires I suppose. It’s sweet. Like all the rest of him. Like very little of me.”

“I see sweetness in you.”

“Don’t lie, it doesn’t suit you. Anyway, I worry if I’ve done a bad job, bringing him here. I thought it would be good for his lungs, the fresh air. He talks about the intoxicating beauty of the landscape, how it inspires him. But I wonder if this place isn’t taking a toll. On his body. On his mind. We finally found him a piano but the music he plays is so sad here. So doleful and slow. It’s like he’s playing a march toward the grave.” She pauses, her lip curling almost imperceptibly. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s not the environment at all.”

“Ah. You can blame my friend for that. He’s a terrible influence. He’s always had a dolefully romantic way about him. It inspires the sort of music you might hear at a funeral.” He frowns and tilts his head in mock-seriousness. “But Zayn _is_ very beautiful, thank god. So...it may be a funeral march he’s inspiring, but it’s one of the loveliest I’ve ever heard.”

Aurore laughs sharply, then narrows her eyes, considering.

“Madame?”

A quick shake of her head.

“It’s nothing. Just,” she deposits the kitten on the rug in front of her chair and it ambles over toward Niall, mewling. “I forget sometimes, when we talk...that you’re just a boy really. I wonder how many funeral dirges you’ve _heard_ in your short life. You just...have a way about you. Both of you, I suppose.”

“We’ve lived.” He moves his shoulders dismissively. “We’ve just lived I suppose. Anyway, I’d guess I’m not as young as you think.”

“No...I’d guess you’re not. But I don’t like to wonder at that. I will let someone else worry some other day.”

He smiles, a lopsided grin.

“Very well then.”

“Very well.” She shifts in her chair, tucking her knees in under her. “So...how does it work?”

For a moment he feels suspended. Tensed.

“Pardon?”

“This is me, letting someone else worry. I look at you, and at him. And I see how deeply you care for each other.” She raises a hand quickly as he opens his mouth to speak, “I don’t care, dear. Love is love is love. And it’s clear you love each other. But I swear it’s like the dark fell in love with the light, or a bird with a fish, or I don’t know...the desert with the sea. Sometimes I think that’s what we are, Frederic and I, to each other. So...explain it to me. How two people can be so far from each other. But feel so close. It feels like a paradox sometimes. And like nothing has ever made more sense. And sometimes I don’t understand him at all, but in the same moment I will feel that he’s a part of me. Like we exist purely for each other.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

Sitting up, Niall scoops the mewling kitten up off the carpet, a squirming ball of fur in each hand now. “Are you familiar with the principles of planetary locomotion, Madame?”

“Planets. Are you about to confess to me that the two of you come from the stars, Niall? I’m not sure I can continue to suspend my anxiety if that’s the case.”

“No no, just an analogy. You see, objects in space exert a force on one another. They move forward in space, as we move forward in life, encountering one another and becoming locked into orbits.” He moves his hands, demonstrating the movement of astronomical bodies, the kittens mewling softly. “The planets orbit around the sun, the moon orbits around the Earth. These bodies are drawn to each other. They live _for_ each other in a way. But their very existence depends on their perpetual motion, you see. Always moving forward, always exerting that force on one another. The moon moves around the earth, and at times it’s far, and at times it’s so near it looms enormous in the sky, and its movement is reflected in the seas and in the seasons and the moonlight and the rhythm of life on earth. They have even found now that there are bodies out there in the void, as great as our own sun, which are locked into orbit with other massive suns. Both careening through space on their own tracks but _completely_ dependent on each other, revolving and circling around nothing but the center of gravity shared between them. Locked in a symbiotic dance. So...that’s it, really. That’s the secret. How it works.”

“The principles of planetary motion.” He watches the corner of her mouth lift, skeptical.

“Yes. It makes sense, see…the two bodies are bound to each other, but they never quite touch. They never move quite in the same space.” He brings his hands together, pressing one animal to the other. “That would mean collision. Death. The destruction of everything they are. No, it’s an eternal dance. A gymnastic flight. A wheeling and careening through the vacuum of life, sometimes they’re far and sometimes they are so close you could swear they are one. But it’s just part of the cycle. It’s a phase in their orbit.”

As he speaks, the kitten in his right hand hisses and lashes out, swatting at its littermate with a tiny matted paw. Niall laughs, pulling them apart. “Ha! As I said.” He brings his hand up to his face, frowning sternly. “You play nice.”

“This all sounds...quite lonely and bleak.”

Niall lets his mouth drop open, aghast. “Au contraire, madame! It’s all heat and flash and light and movement and the exchange of energy. It’s beautiful. Love is not stagnant. It’s not unchanging. It’s dynamic. It’s explosive.”

She bites at her nail absently, taking in the scene at the piano. “I’ve had explosive. Enough of that to last a lifetime. I would prefer something more like a rolling wave. A gently receding and rising tide perhaps?”

“Very well then. It’s that too.” Niall brings his hands to his mouth, one at a time, kissing each animal gently on the head. “We’ll call this one George. And this one will be Fred. And they will grow together, and perhaps they will grow apart, but they will always exert a force on one another, and live for each other, and no matter how near or far or explosive, or how much like a gently rolling tide, it will be beautiful and it will be right. Because--”

“Because they will love.”

“Because they will love. And they will be loved.”

 

 

**Stockholm, November 2010**

 

It’s hot and dry in the bar and he feels it in his nose and his eyes and his skin. There’s a cold sharp draft each time someone opens the door at his back, the scent of burning tobacco and snow and sodium lights.

The music is loud and heavy and fills the air like steam, or like breath filling a lung, ebbing and flowing and dully impacting his eardrums and it sounds just lovely, so he’ll probably buy a record. That says a lot, because that will necessitate an interaction with the girl at the merch table. An exchange of goods and funds. He hates that part. The talking part. Sometimes he feels like what he’s trying to say gets muddled on the way out. Messed around. One word becomes another and then he’s tripping over his own tongue. He wishes Niall were here. Niall makes him clever. And anyway Niall’s never had any trouble with that sort of thing, thrives on it, really.

He holds that feeling for a moment. Gauges it. Tests its flavor and tone. He pushes his glasses up his nose and curls a hand around the pint in front of him.

The glasses are really pretty key on a night like this. A dark corner, a warm beer, a pair of raybans. No one wants to talk to the sort of git who wears sunglasses to a rock club.

“Hi.”

Zayn looks up, surprised. There’s a boy standing just across the table from him, or rather a man. They all look like boys to him. He’s ludicrously tan for Stockholm in November, fit and a little windswept, like he’s just returned from a uni ski trip. He’s clutching a pint in one hand and is holding the other up in greeting. Zayn can see a series of arrows tattooed in black ink, visible where he’s rolled the sleeve of his button-up to his elbow.

“I just…” He runs his hand through his hair nervously. “I couldn’t help but notice the accent when you were ordering. Fellow Englishman here.” He says it in a self-effacing sort of way, like he’s guilty of something. He’s smiling over at Zayn expectantly, and Zayn just sits quietly, a little dumbfounded. People don’t really…this isn’t a thing that happens. When Niall’s around maybe, yeah. Niall is like a magnet for this sort of thing. He draws people into him. Zayn shakes his head imperceptibly, trying to clear his head. He can feel waves coming off the boy. Hopeful curiosity, genuine innocent interest. He reminds Zayn of a golden retriever, waiting for someone to pick up his ball.

“I…uh…” Zayn isn’t sure what to say.

“Liam. Um. That’s me. ” He holds his hand out for a moment but when Zayn doesn’t move to take it, he lets it fall back to his side, slipping it into his pocket. “I uh…I just moved out here for a residency. You come here a lot? This music is a bit mental, right? I mean, it’s good. Like arty. I like that kind of like…art…stuff. God I’m really talking, aren’t I? I didn’t catch your name.”

“Zayn.”

Liam nods, smiling. “Alright.” He just stands there for a moment, looking around a little awkwardly, like he’s waiting for Zayn to say more. His face is becoming flushed and Zayn feels a tug in the center of himself. He grips the glass in front of him. Liam swallows, then he says “well maybe I’ll--”

Just as Zayn is opening his mouth to say “I’m not really--”

They both stop speaking at the same time and Liam laughs. “Right, no. I’ll leave you to it. Just…maybe I’ll see you around again. Always nice to meet a fellow ex-pat.”

“Yeah. Right.”

Liam salutes awkwardly and turns, moving away through the crowd. Zayn slips his glasses back onto his face. He stares down at his beer. Maybe he should’ve said something more. Should’ve invited him to sit. He hasn’t had a proper conversation in a long time. He’s no good at it, when Niall’s not around. He rubs at his mouth with the back of one hand and turns to the front of the room.

The girl on stage is bobbing and swaying as she sings, sinking nearly to the floor and standing back up. Her hair is long and blinding white and it rises and falls in a halo, moving like the cap of a jellyfish. It’s unsettling and inhuman and captivating. Zayn wants to talk to her maybe. Ask her questions. Take her home. Play her records. But the world is so different now. Everything is so close and connected and immediate. All the things that used to be difficult are so easy. All the parts that were easy are near impossibilities. Better that he didn’t say anything. Better that he let that Liam person wander away. Better to be alone.

He buys two copies of her records and slips out before the headliner, pulling out his phone to check the time.

_Sun just setting hear n I caught the tail end ! red like mad. You thinking of me then ?_

He sighs and taps the screen as he moves down the street toward the river. It rings once.

“Y’Alright?”

“Please don’t text me.”

“Aw, babe...”

“Did you even look at that before you hit send? The modern world is making you illiterate.”

“I was _literally_ hopping around on one foot tryin to get my damn shoe on. Anyway it’s not me it’s the autocorrect thingy. It’s my worst enemy.”

“You have a _literal_ eternity to spare. Like...one thing at a time maybe, babe. Take it slow.”

“I’m sitting in a chair now.”

“That’s a lovely start.”

“I’m not moving.”

“mmm”

“For you. All for you.”

“Thank you.”

He walks into the shadow of the overpass, under the bridge, and says nothing. He listens to the silence on the line and thinks of Niall sitting quietly, doing the same. He slows, leans against the wall and reaches a finger out, tapping three times against the stone.

“It’s nice to hear you.”

“Yeah. Are you out?”

“Just left a show. Down the strand. This girl...she was like...unreal. Do you remember when I told you about Karachi, the men who would play at night, outside the cafes—“

“I remember you sent me a _telegram_ from Karachi. That’s like the _original_ text message.”

“Shush. Anyway there were some nights, some performances...like, you had the layers, the drone and the noise and the harmonic dissonance, and then sometimes that would all come into laser focus, through one person. Like a prism, refracting and diffracting the light? Like that. She had something of that. Something supernatural.”

“Maybe she was a _child of the niiiight_.” Niall affects a spooky midnight movie voice. Zayn laughs quietly.

“Nah, I saw her eating chips during the opener.”

Niall laughs, loud and hard.

“Where are you off to now? Back home to your nest?”

“By way of the grocery.” His voice is a murmur. “Out of cream.”

“Ah...”

“Someone talked to me.”

“Oh jesus. Do I need to sound the alarm? Will you be alright?”

“No. I mean yes. Shut up. It was…weird. Just this boy. He heard my accent or something and like…wasn’t put off or anything.”

“Were you wearing your specs?”

“Yeah.”

“Well clearly he’s got terrible taste, you look like a git in them. A boy though? Was he cute? Should I be jealous?”

“Get off. Where are you now?”

“Athens. Been here for a month or so. I’m on my way out now. There’s a bar...been visitin with some people.”

“Mmmm.”

“You should’ve asked him around. You sound lonely. Listen though. I’ve been thinking of you.”

“Yeah?”

Niall laughs, “Yeah. Like always, babe. But like, you remember last time I was here, I saw this boy play. Like just him and a guitar and I think a guy with a horn, you know? And he was like...just...I talked to him, after. I bought him a beer. He let me come see his room and it was a proper madhouse. Just this like mess of color and wires and tapes and paper and he played me this stuff he’d been putting down on a 4-track.”

“Yeah. I remember. You’re back? What’s that, 18 years? Is that-”

“Yeah it’s cool. Anyone says something I’ll just say I’m me own nephew or summat. But listen, I looked at this boy, and it was you, babe. He was you, and it hadn’t been so long then, and I was still sore maybe, but it hit me hard, and I looked at him and I saw how bright he was burning. He was just like...so alive with ideas and music and it was all so baby fresh and new but he was so bleedin fragile and I could see it. I could see the path he was on, you know? I knew he wouldn’t last. He was soft, the same as you, but none of the hard parts.”

“No teeth...”

“More. More than just that. So anyway, I was out the other night and I hear some buzzin, like a hint of a thought and I’m asking around and they’re saying he’s fixin to play shows again.”

“That’s...”

“Yeah. You know...it makes me think. Sometimes they go, you know, and they don’t come back. And...I...” he’s slowing down, not talking at a mile a minute now, “I’m glad you do. You always come back.”

Zayn presses his forehead to the cold stone of the wall. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t say anything.

“Will you smile, babe?”

“I am smiling.”

“Don’t lie. Did you get the record I sent?”

“Yeah I got it.”

“Do you need me to come?”

Zayn pushes off the wall and moves forward, past the bridge and down the path, into the glow of the street lamp. He watches the black water move in the moonlight. He doesn’t say anything.

“We could go see him play. Together.”

Zayn lets that hang in the air for a moment, silent.

“I recorded a bit of the show. You want to hear?”

He hears Niall sigh, nearly imperceptible.

“Yeah. Yeah let’s hear it.”

Zayn fumbles in his pocket for his recorder and queues it up, holding it near his mouth. He presses the phone to his ear again. They listen together for a while.

“Yeah. I get it. It makes me think of Dublin. The last time. When you were messin about with that real droney band. What was the one?”

“Don’t be cute.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Get off. Anyway they were barely anything yet…not more than the idea of a thing.”

“March 25th 1984, babe. I’ve a photo of you from that night. I keep it with me. You’ve got that leather jacket on and a cigarette in your mouth and your hair is all lose. Wearin sunglasses in the club like a proper arsehole. I love it. It’s my favorite. D’ya remember, we were hiding in the corner like a couple of proper spooks and the music was so loud you could like… _feel_ it in the air and I was reading you that jokey article…”

“Yeah.”

“200 reasons to stay in Dublin. #1…if you’re buried here.” Niall laughs, hard. “I wanted to drag you out of that place so badly. I wanted to show you the world.”

“If you’re buried here, like Jonathan.”

A quiet pause, Niall still smiling. Zayn hears it in his voice when he speaks. “Aye…poor old Jonathan.”

“Do you ever wonder how many of them we’ve buried?”

“I love it when you get morbid.”

“Don’t joke, babe…”

“Of course I don’t wonder. I know. It’s just death, love. It’s a part of life.”

“And what about us?”

“We’ll never have that luxury. But we’ll never grow old, and you’ll never not be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, you can smoke all the cigarettes you want forever and ever and we’ll never go mad in the end.”

“Are we not mad then?”

“No. Sometimes I think we’re the two sanest people on earth.”

Zayn says nothing. Then, “are you eating alright?”

“I look after meself.”

“You know that poem...the one you sent from Santiago?”

“Huh. Yeah. That one was a gift from Pablo...after I kept him up for a thousand and one nights expounding on the curve of your lips and other compelling subjects. I think he wanted to give something back. God I was such a twat I don’t know how he could stand me. Don’t know how _you_ can stand me. Not that you do. Why?”

“No reason. I just...I found it tonight. You know. I remembered...”

“Zayn...you’re really alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m alright.”

“You know you just have to ask.”

“I know. I’m alright. A little more time. I just miss you tonight is all.”

“I always miss you. I miss your mouth...and your voice...and your hair... and your cheekbones-”

Zayn chuckles, pressing the phone against his cheek.

“- _the sovereign nose of your arrogant face_...”

“S’not arrogant.”

“Ermph...shoot the messenger I suppose. There’s always things lost in translation.”

“Love you, Nialler”

“Tá mo chroí ionat, babe.”

He hangs up and slips his phone into his pocket as he rounds the corner. He can hear people up ahead, quiet voices, shapes in the dark, clearly defined. The glow of exposed skin. A man and a woman. He’s helping her up from the ground. She laughs quietly, drunk and flushed. Zayn catches the bitter metallic scent of blood in the air. A scrape. A ragged palm. He hurries by, and the look on his face must be terrible or absurd or over the top because he hears the woman call after him as his rushes down the path, following the river toward the hospital.

“Ar du okay, kompis?”

 

 

**Athens, GA December 2010**

_Z,_

_I’m sorry for the texts…sometimes it’s just nice. That sudden spark. Crack! A burst of connection. Like an electric charge jumping the gap between two points. Like sending radio signals into space._

_Next time I see you, whenever that is, I’m taking you out to get a proper phone. I want to see you. We can make that happen now, you know. The future is bloody mad and you’re still running around with a damn flip phone. WHICH REMINDS ME, I’m sending you a package and I need you to put it somewhere safe. I’ve been alerted that the powers that be are_ discontinuing _polaroid film. It’s fucking mental, it is, but them’s the ropes I suppose. Like your thing with laserdiscs, you know? We can’t win them all._

_Do you remember that first telegram? I came home to the flat in London and there was this slip of paper. It said your name and it said Karachi and I stood there and I held it and I couldn’t believe how close you felt. It was you! Delivered to me through electrical wires. It was like divination. Like those spectres haunting parlors in cheesecloth, rapping on tables, but real. So real and sudden and immediate and there with me and it was a strange person’s handwriting but your words and you wanted to come home._

_Remember Paris? The third time I mean. I remember every minute. How you secreted yourself away for months…writing that music. Tearing away layer after layer until you’d reached the core of this idea you’d been chasing for decades. Crouched on the floor like an animal, surrounded by papers. Your eyes were very lovely in the candlelight when you would tilt your head up to me, but you looked so far away._

_Sometimes you are so in your head and I want to be right there with you, I want to crawl inside, but I know you need your space. Sometimes I want to drag you out. So I drag you out, and I show you that the world still exists and it’s still turning and changing and it’s not going to stop. I know you forget that. You forget it isn’t all rote repetition. You forget how much we’ve changed ourselves._

_But if I could be with you every moment of every day and be in the world…every part of the world, I would. And thank god we have eternity, however long that turns out to be, because I can have both. I love you. I love the world. I want to show you every square inch of it and make you fall in love the way I fall in love every day._

_My time’s running out here, maybe. People are saying things. Little things._

_Remember Frederic? At times I thought maybe he understood. Like he saw us. His fingers were so long and thin and smooth and he was so delicate and sometimes I thought we could keep him forever, and George too. George would’ve been hell on wheels._

_I wonder about it sometimes, if you need someone to stay with you. Who_ can _stay with you. Or if it’s the solitude you really need. Solitude, then me, then solitude, then partnership, solitude, togetherness, again and again. Like you always say, we are living in cycles. There is no birth or death, just an endless theater of the absurd. The two of us, falling through life in endless circles, bound to each other. My sarabande and your gymnopedie._

_You know I’ll come to you if you ask. Wait for me._

_N_

 

 

**Paris, August 1888**

 

On a Thursday night in August, they leave the flat early, just after the sun sets. Niall is practically dragging him through the streets, swinging him around by the arm, tugging on the sleeve of his coat.

“You’ve got to walk faster, love, we’ll be late.”

“Late for what? I don’t--what’ve you done?”

Niall lets go of him and jogs ahead, his coat winging out behind him on the breeze.

“It’s a surprise. I can’t tell you, that would ruin it.”

“I don’t like surprises...”

Niall stops short and turns. He lets Zayn catch up, then winds an arm around his waist and squeezes.

“You’ll like it. You have to like it.” He presses his lips to Zayn’s softly. “I did it just for you.”

They arrive at someone’s apartment in Montmartre just after 10. Niall pulls him into an alleyway that smells of fish and tends to his hair, smoothing the strands, straightens his collar and tie.

“Dashing. Do me.”

Zayn smiles, biting his lip in concentration, sorting Niall’s quiff. It’s a bit out of control, as usual. He pats at it ineffectually and shrugs.

“You look fine.” He sees Niall roll his eyes. “Honestly. You look lovely.”

“Can’t trust you,” he grumbles, “you always think that.”

Niall drags him back out to the street and through a doorway, up a narrow staircase. They arrive in the apartment and it’s hot and close and smells of tobacco and sweat and humanity and Zayn pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and covers his mouth, coughing delicately. A woman takes their coats when they walk in, bowing politely, and Zayn leans over, brushing Niall’s ear with his lips.

“No dinner first, then?” He hears the strain in his own voice and bites his lip, embarrassed. Niall reaches for his hand and squeezes.

“No time. We’ll live.”

“I know we’ll live, darling, I was more worried about everyone else.”

Niall throws his head back and laughs explosively. Zayn tries to shush him, but it’s too late, they’ve already offended half of the drawing room. A sea of faces turn to them, a sea of stern, disapproving looks. He claps his hand fully over Niall’s mouth, pressing down firmly. Niall quiets, then bites at Zayn’s palm, teasing.

“Ow! Bloody hell--save it for later. You’re like a child.”

One of the faces in the crowd is moving forward, smiling eagerly, hopefully. His dark hair is brushed back away from his brow and Zayn sees the hint of a beard shadowing his jaw. Young. He approaches, fiddling with the spectacles on his nose. Niall reaches up and removes Zayn’s hand from his mouth, smiling in a familiar way. Like a friend. He reaches out with his other hand and they greet each other warmly.

“Monsieur. I’d begun to think you wouldn’t come. But of course. It wouldn’t have--” He trails off awkwardly, then turns his attention to Zayn. His gaze is enthusiastic and singularly focused. It makes Zayn feel exposed, much too seen. “This must be the elusive Monsieur Malik!”

The man extends a hand and Zayn just stands there for a moment, looking at it. Niall nudges him with an elbow, a quick jab, and he extends his own hand. If the man finds his skin cold, he says nothing.

“Apologies, Erik, he doesn’t get out much in polite company.”

The man—Erik?—doesn’t falter. He’s still smiling as he drops his hand back to his side.

“No worries, friend, an artist recognizes an artist.”

He leads them through the parlor and directs them to sit, offers them a drink. Niall smiles politely and waves a hand. “No, thank you my friend.”

“Very well. But listen, you _must_ stay. We’ll be adjourning to the café after the performance and I have so much to say to your partner. I absolutely must insist, now that you’ve managed to produce him in the very flesh!”

Zayn looks over at Niall, questioning. Niall just smiles back at him and shrugs. Erik stands up straight and claps twice, addressing the room.

“I believe we’re ready, then. Please have a seat, friends.”

People begin to move toward the chairs and sofas scattered around the parlor in the particular intentionally unintentional way that seems to be the fashion these days. The room is filled with the sound of throats clearing, the rustle of fabric as skirts are arranged. Zayn gauges the mood. Expectant, impatient, bored, intrigued, hungry, depressed, in love. Nothing dominates or overpowers or stands out, it’s just the dissonance of an early-evening gathering in the city. He tunes it out and turns his attention to the piano at the front of the room, where Erik has positioned himself, smiling at the crowd.

“Thank you for coming, friends. Please allow me to humbly present a trio of pieces for your approval, with very special thanks to my friend and artistic confidante, who prefers to remain unnamed. But rest assured, this would not be possible without his influence and inspiration.”

He turns toward the two of them then and nods once in acknowledgement. Niall nods back and smiles. Zayn doesn’t know where he should look, so he looks at Niall, then down at his lap. The crowd claps politely as Erik situates himself at the piano, moving his coat-tails out of the way as he sits. He raises his hands to the keys and begins to play.

As the first measure fills the air, the room falls quiet. The rustling stops. Zayn can hear breaths slow and cease as people still themselves to listen. He recognizes the melody just as he feels Niall’s hand slip over his own, squeezing softly, and it jars him. He looks over at Niall and Niall is already turned to him, his face expectant. Hopeful. He looks like a child waiting to be praised, or maybe scolded.

“What did--”

“Shhhhh.” Niall pushes his palm against Zayn’s mouth, quieting him. He turns Zayn’s head toward the piano. “Just listen.”

 

**

 

“What I can’t understand, monsieur, is how you have no desire for any artistic credit!”

They’re sitting around a small wooden table, nursing glasses of ale and absinthe. The café is stuffy and packed with people and the smell is overpowering. Zayn inhales slow and deep and closes his eyes, letting the scent mingle with the buzz of peoples’ thoughts. The manic electric cacophony of a summer night. Their skin smells of the sun and if he digs deep, he can nearly form an image in his mind. A summer day. The colors and the heat and the unbearable brightness. He lets go. Tries to tune out the mental noise and looks down at his drink. He shrugs.

“Don’t know. I suppose...it’s like...the creation is the part that matters maybe?” He glances over at Niall for help but Niall isn’t looking. He’s fiddling with a sugarcube, sliding it back and forth across the table between his hands, listening quietly. “The act of writing the music. The intimacy of it. Drawing an idea out of the air and articulating it in notes and measures. It’s different once it’s finished. Like a shell of what it was when it was becoming. Not alive anymore...like...the more you play it the more it’s like dragging someone out of the grave. I don’t know.”

“So to perform the piece then, you’re saying I’ve reanimated a corpse? That’s....quite macabre.”

Niall laughs explosively. “It IS, isn’t it? God almighty, Zayn, I’ve got to get you out more often. Walking corpses. Jesus. I’m sorry, Erik, he’s been reading too much Shelley.”

“Ah... _our sweetest songs are those that share the saddest thoughts_.”

Niall drops the sugar cube in his glass and swirls it around. “Ha...I was thinking of his better half, but yes. Quite apt.”

“Quite! The work is fascinating in its simplicity. The repetition, like a cycle of birth and death. The same story repeated again and again...I found it sad at first, then I understood.”

Zayn raises his head, taken aback. “Understood?”

“It’s not sad at all. It’s all in the variation. The evolution of the tone, the accents, the subtle differences. The way the melody changes upon repetition. It’s...hope. Each piece is run through with hope. Each verse builds on the one before.”

Niall slaps a hand down on the table, rattling their glasses.

“Exactly!”

Zayn sits quietly, dumbfounded. He opens his mouth just as Niall pokes him in the ribs, hard.

“Exactly, Zayn. And with that, we’d better be off.” He raises his glass, tipping it jovially and standing up from the table.

“Ah, but I’ve barely had a chance to interrogate your friend!”

“Another time, perhaps.” Zayn smiles, extending a hand, and Erik holds it in his own for a moment. Zayn can feel his desperation and he doesn’t look down on it because he’s been there before. So many times. Chasing an idea. Digging it down to the roots only to have crumble and decompose in your hands. He squeezes once, softly, and smiles, then Niall tugs at him, dragging him away.

“But Niall! Monsieur Horan! We’re going swimming at Asnieres tomorrow! You must join us! Both of you!”

“Apologies! My friend is not a swimmer and we’ve a busy day ahead of us.” He spins to face Erik again and bows extravagantly. “Some other time.”

“I’ll hold you to that!”

Niall turns again and drains his glass with a flourish. Or rather, appears to drain his glass with a flourish. Zayn watches him palm it, move forward and set it down on a nearby table, nudging it toward an entangled couple, too wrapped up in each other to acknowledge his gift. He reaches back and grabs for Zayn’s hand, impatient, and Zayn obliges, putting his hand in Niall’s as they slip out into the night.

“Where to, my love?” Niall pulls Zayn to him as soon as they’re out the door, snaking one arm around his waist, beneath his suit coat. With the other, he taps at Zayn’s chest three times, quick and familiar.

“Shall we haunt the cemetery? See what ghosts we can rouse from their slumber?”

“God no. I’ve had enough of the walking dead for one night.”

Niall pulls away, his hands clutched to his chest in mock-affront, but Zayn feels the truth of it. The insecurity. The uncertainty and hopefulness and doubt. He reaches for Niall, pulling him back in close, nuzzling at his ear.

“A joke, darling. Just a joke.”

“Shhhh. Let me go.” His voice is muffled by Zayn’s shoulder. “You ungrateful brute.”

“Fine. But no cemetery. It’s too macabre.”

“Swimming at Asnieres, perhaps?” Niall waggles his eyebrows.

“Get off.”

“That’s a no then.”

“A definite no. A massive, resounding no.”

“Fair enough.”

“Listen though. Stop.” He tugs at Niall’s waist, slowing him, spinning him round until their eyes meet in the dark. “Thank you.”

Niall just smiles softly, and his face looks so innocent for a moment Zayn wants to laugh and also cry but neither of those seem right or appropriate so he leans in and kisses him instead.

“You’re welcome. I thought...I wasn’t sure.”

“Well, it was...interesting, certainly. I mean, he didn’t get it right, of course. But that’s to be expected--”

Niall laughs, sharp and loud and quick, cutting Zayn off.

“You’re the most--” He shakes his head and Zayn can feel the bewilderment and frustration and love coming off of him in waves. “He got it exactly right, Zayn.”

“But it’s not--”

“It is. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about walking corpses and sisyphean tragedy. Let’s wander. Let’s eat!” He pulls Zayn forward, over the cobblestones, through the dark. “The city is being reborn around us and you’ve been holed up so far away from me for so many decades. I want to show you everything. I want to climb to the top of it and look down and dedicate it all to you.”

 

 

They walk for an hour, southwest toward the river, then across. Zayn feels exhilarated and Niall is talking endlessly about who’s done what where with whom, his face lit up, his eyes shining in the dark. His laugh is infectious. Zayn doesn’t understand half of what he’s saying, but somehow he wants to live in this moment forever, listening to Niall talk. Experiencing the world by proxy.

The night is warm and the city smells of summer gardens and trash and people. Everything is bright and alien and old and new. Niall is bright and alien and old and new and Zayn thinks this is the best part. This is always the best part. Finding each other again after so long.

They make a detour on the way, sitting for a short time with a man at Pont d’Lena. He’d come out in the dead of night with a singular purpose and they discover him staring down into the black water, bolstering his courage, cementing his intention before attending to one final bit of business. They sit with him, one on each side, and listen as he talks. It’s quiet, nearly a whisper. He seems to find a sort of peace in it. Like confession. When they’re done they wish him luck, then deliver him to the water as he’d wished and continued on.

They walk to the tower, or what’s meant to be a tower before long. It’s not finished yet. Just an angular, jutting mess of cold iron, jagged edges jutting up toward the sky like amputated limbs. They climb, saying nothing, all the way to the top and sit there together, side by side, looking out over the city. Dark buildings and black water and the glow of the arc lamps. Niall looks down, straight down to the dark earth below and clutches at his chest, grinning madly.

“Jeeeesus. This is high. This is really--I mean, I’m not nervous at all right now.”

Zayn laughs. “You shouldn’t be. It’s not like the fall will kill you.”

Niall shrugs. “Eh. It was never death for me. Even when I could. Death never frightened me. It was the pain.” He leans out, peering down at the ground. “And that’s not off the table, is it? There’s still plenty of pain.”

“I won’t let you fall.”

“You’re one to talk anyway. Afraid of water when you can’t drown.”

Niall presses against him, their shoulders touching. They sit that way for a while, watching the lights flicker and burn.

“I’m glad I came back. I’m glad you—“ Zayn looks down at his lap. “I’m just glad.”

“I know.” He feels Niall’s hand searching for his and grips it tight.

“It’s so bright. I can’t believe--”

“It’s a bloody wonder, isn’t it? An entire city lit up with artificial sunlight. Buzzing and crackling and aflame. They’ll burn the whole place down.”

“It’s absurd.”

“It’s new. New things are always messy and noisy and explosive. It’ll get better. They’ll get it right eventually.”

“It’s beautiful though.”

“Yeah. It’s beautiful.”

They don’t speak for a while. They just sit, looking out over the city, their fingers intertwined.

“Do you understand why I did it?”

“Hmmmm?”

“Do you know why I gave the piece to Erik?”

“I suppose...you wanted to prove me wrong. Or...exorcise it somehow. I don’t know.”

“It’s not that. I know...I know it could seem that way. It’s just...” He grips Zayn’s hand tighter, pulling it into his lap. “I see you.”

Zayn says nothing, just squeezes Niall’s hand.

“No. No I mean, I _see_ you. And I think sometimes you don’t see yourself at all. I look at you and I’m blinded. I see so much light and life and beauty, and I’m so floored I can’t speak. And your mind...I just...I’m in awe of you. Every day, and every day I worry that you’ve no idea. That you can’t see yourself.”

“Well, if we’re being literal--”

“Exactly! We’re ghosts. Unseen. I can barely remember what I...it’s just...before I met you, I think I’d lost myself. And when we’re apart, once enough time has gone by, I remember how that feels. How empty and ugly I can become without you.”

“But you’re lovely--”

“I know you know what I mean. I know. I can’t see myself without you. I get lost. I know you feel empty too. I know you lose yourself. And I know you have trouble with the world, like you can’t look at it head-on. Like it’s all too much.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything.

“I thought...If I took your work...if I released it into the wild. Maybe you would see the truth of it, like a mirror. You would see how beautiful you are and that this...us...our life...it’s not hopeless. It’s not ugly or futile. It’s lovely. You’re lovely. He got it right.”

“I don’t feel empty when I’m with you.”

“No. And maybe it’s...maybe we need each other. We’re standing on opposite ends of the same plane, in perfect balance. If you left me, like really left me, maybe I’d burn out. I’d never know when to stop. I’d lose...all the good parts of me if I didn’t have you to come home to. And you...”

“I’d be swallowed. I would be. I know it. I’d be swallowed up if you weren’t there to pull me out. I just...I suppose I need time to myself. To remember that.”

“I get it. I do. We live in circles. That part you got right. And I know it can feel strange and repetitive and like we’re going nowhere, but it’s not. It’s none of that.” He pulls Zayn to him, twining his fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. “It builds, love. And it evolves and it changes and it’s beautiful. And it can be messy and explosive and raw and maybe sometimes we’ll burn everything down trying to make it work but it’s worth it. Because I am so very very old. And I get so bloody tired. But every time I come home to you, I’m new again.”

Zayn pulls back and looks him in the eye. He can see the cold blue of them in the light filtering up from the city. He reaches out and smoothes Niall’s hair across his forehead. Runs a thumb over his lips. They’re warm and soft and flushed pink with blood.

“I wish you could see yourself.”

Niall just shrugs. He smiles against Zayn’s thumb.

“Show me.”

 

**Stockholm, January 2010**

 

The silence of the hospital basement at night is so loud that Zayn can barely think straight. The hum of the flourescents. The dull repetitive thud of a washing machine somewhere nearby, beating blood and sweat and humours out of hospital linens. The sterile walls and the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum and the quiet of the dead, who are down here somewhere, he knows it.

He feels like he’s put his head on sideways. Distracted and irritable and dull. He’d drunk himself down to the last drop and hadn’t noticed, not really, not until he’d pull out the last canister and found it nearly dry. He turns a corner and finds the door, third on the left, knocks twice, softly, and lets himself in.

Niall never would’ve let it get this bad. It’s a thought he can’t seem to shake. Persistent and nagging. He’s stuck on it again as he shuts the door behind him and turns.

“God kväll...”

“Bloody hell!” There’s a loud scraping, the sound of a metal stool sliding across the floor. The man across the room clutches his chest and steadies himself on the edge of the table, breathing hard. Zayn can hear his heart racing. Hard. Young. He backs toward the door.

“I’m sorry, I must...do I have the wrong--”

The man stands, frantically sorting the mess on the table while he turns. “No! No you’re fine. It’s all aces. Just—Oh.”

He’s turned around now and facing Zayn. Young, tanned, wind-swept. Oh.

“This is.” The man shakes his head, disbelieving. “Weird. This is weird. Hi.”

Zayn isn’t sure what to say. He just stands there, clutching the bag hanging from his shoulder, staring.

“Hi.”

They’re frozen. Liam (was it Liam?) is just staring at him like he’s got two heads and his heart is still racing, which is causing a sort of a racket, with the blood going everywhere. Zayn feels his throat tighten, a dull ache. A pull.

“I was expecting...uh...”

“Almar. Right. Yes. Er. He’s gone.”

“Oh--” Zayn feels alarm creeping up his spine. He’d never considered what he would do. He doesn’t have a contingency plan. The anxiety must be written all over his face, because Liam is holding his hands up in a placating way.

“No! No no no I mean he’s retired. Like gone somewhere warm. He’s...uh...I’m his replacement. Er...stand in. Whatever.”

“Ok...” Zayn feels at sea, a little feverish. He can see the flush in Liam’s upturned palms. The pulse moving in the thin flesh of his wrist.

“He told me all about you, it’s cool. Everything’s squared away, right? Good blood, none of the dodgy stuff, no transfer paperwork. It’s good.”

Zayn doesn’t know what to say, so he just nods. Liam reaches out to him, his palm upturned. Zayn isn’t sure what he wants. To...hold hands? He stares at Liam’s exposed wrist, blank-faced.

“Your bag, mate?”

Zayn looks up from his hand and takes the bag off his shoulder. He passes it over. Liam walks to the freezer at the end of the table and opens it. He sets a few canisters into the bag, arranging them carefully.

“Bloody hell, man. You nearly gave me a heart attack. Listen though, I should have know you were an artist type. You’ve got that like...vibe about you. Almar told me a bit about what you do, with the performance stuff. Sounds proper mad.”

When he returns, Zayn is ready, holding a roll of cash in his hand. Liam holds the bag out. He bites his lip.

“Er...I mean it sounds cool, you know. Like mental and stuff, but brill. I don’t know. I don’t know much about that sort of thing.”

Zayn takes the bag and slips it onto his shoulder. Liam looks at the cash in his hand and shakes his head.

“This is...this is _way_ too much, mate. Like--”

“You have to take it.”

Liam shuts his mouth, considering.

“He told me that part too.”

Zayn isn’t sure what to do or say. He should leave, but he finds himself frozen to the spot. Like there’s more. He holds out his hand. Liam smiles and takes it, shaking it firmly. Zayn wants to pull him close. He wants to fit his lips to the curve of his neck. He wonders if it tastes like sun, even now, in the dead of winter.

“Cheers. Thanks.”

It feels trite, but Zayn isn’t sure what else to say. He’s got to get out of here. Now.

“Yeah. Any time. Just like...knock louder next time?” His eyes go wide then. “Listen though. You’re like an artist, right? And you like music and stuff, obviously. You should come to this DJ night thing I’ve got going.” He spins around and hurries to the table, digging through a pile of papers. “Got a flyer here somewhere. Christ, what a mess.”

Zayn lets himself out, shutting the door softly behind him, and makes his way out of the hospital and into the frozen night. He doesn’t get far, just to the bridge, where he slumps in the shadows and digs frantically in his bag.

The blood is frigid and thick, but it does the job. He feels the ache and the burn recede, his head clearing. He wonders how close he just came and he feels sick.

He pulls out his phone and punches in a number.

 

**Manchester, September 1988**

_N,_

_You never minded the light, babe. That’s what drew me to you. That’s what terrified me. That’s what scares me now. I’m not like you, really. Or maybe we’re more alike than I can see. Maybe we’re two sides of the same coin. Or two circles in a venn diagram, twins, but slightly askew._

_I went back to the flat last night without you and the air was buzzing. Or my ears were. One of the two, and I sat down on the chaise and I listened, because silence has a sound. I know you hear it too._

_You’ve heard this song before. We’ve played it a thousand times._

_I watched you up there, in the light. I wasn’t the only one. I can’t imagine that many eyes on me. That many lives turned to me, like flowers facing the sun. Soaking it in. Fragile and unwitting and beautiful and meaningful and brief. You’re the sun, Ni, and when you move, our faces turn and we follow. I know you need that. Maybe more than the blood. I see how you consume people. You’re as frigid as me but somehow you’re heat and you’re blinding light._

_I think I’ll go somewhere cold. Really proper cold this time. I hear you talking, about Athens, the other Athens. About Texas. About New York. You know I can’t follow you there and that’s ok. It’s time maybe. Past time._

_Do you remember the cabin in Dover? (Do you remember. Ha). It was so cold, the dead of winter. We stopped in at that pub in the village and stood outside in the dark smoking cigarettes and that girl stumbled out through the doorway and swung her arms around your neck and kissed you square on the lips. I saw you start, like you were waiting for a hammer to drop. But nothing ever shifted. No alarms, no panic. Her mind was a whirlwind of confusion and warmth and intoxication and young desperation and she let go of you and laughed and she cried out “you’re ice cold, love!”_

_You threw back your head and laughed along with her and she continued on down the street, out of our lives._

_Maybe cold is where we belong. What we’re born to. The dark and the cold. But when you laugh, everything is illuminated and I remember what I’m for. What else I’m for. And I laugh with you. I didn’t laugh for so long, before I met you._

_We drove to the water, do you remember (do you remember, I did it again). We drove right up to the cliff’s edge and opened the doors and let the radio play while we sat propped against the hood of the car and watched the black sea move beneath us and we rediscovered each other. You kissed me and it felt warm. You always feel warm. The car got cold though. Remember? You turned the key and the engine cranked and wheezed like a rheumy old man and you looked over at me and I saw you weighing our options. Race the sun back to town on foot? Sleep in the boot? Bury ourselves alive in sand?_

_I feel like that sometimes. Like the car, not the sand. Like I’ve run down. Like I’ve left the radio on too long, sending and receiving. You’re not like that…or less like that. You’re like an inexhaustible well of energy. A nuclear submarine. A lighthouse. A beacon in the dark. I love you, but I can’t leave my lights on for so long. I’ll burn out._

_I’m watching you now. You’re radiant. You were radiant the first night I saw you on the street in Milan. The whole world was death, all around us. Not the pretty or the quiet kind. And I thought I was finished. I felt old and tired and sick and ashamed and I was being so careless with myself. I remember thinking “is it time? Am I done here?” And there you were, shining so bright and so alive and smiling like something so new. Out of your time._

_I think about what you said._

_“You can’t die tonight, what a waste that would be.”_

_Sometimes I feel like I’m living for you, maybe too much. Without you, maybe I’d have been lost in the darkness a long time ago, but if I stay too long, I worry I’ll be swallowed up by your light. Taken in. Burned up._

_So I’m going somewhere cold. I’m retreating. I’m crying uncle. Don’t worry about me please. I’ve just got to remember how to be alone. I’ve got to remind myself who I am without you, the old me. For better or worse...It’s like you said that night in Paris. We’re balancing on opposite ends of a fulcrum, but I’ve got to remember what it is to stand on my own...until I sink under my own weight._

_Anyway you know the tune, babe. I see the wanderlust in you. You’re starved as much as me. Let’s do it all again, like before, until we feel so old and alone that it’s each other we’re starving for, and we’ll fall back together and remember what it is to feel new again._

_Z_

 

**Karachi, March 1885**

 

_By telegraph from Zayn Malik, Karachi_

_To M. Niall Horan, Paris_

_Stay still just for a moment. I’m on my way._

  

 

**February 2011, Stockholm**

 

Zayn senses Niall before he hears him, a soft electricity in the back of his skull. The gentle hum of his mind. Anticipation and relief and anxiety and love and hunger. There’s a knock on the door, and Zayn picks himself up off the couch. He’s been there for days, barely moving beyond trips to the kitchen to feed. It’s like the minute he made the call, the minute he gave in, his body and mind just abandoned the charade. He’s a wreck. He’s been a wreck for a while now maybe. It’s so hard to tell. So difficult to see himself when he’s like this. He feels like a ghost.

He cracks the door and peers out and Niall is standing there. It’s so simple...he’s just...existing in this space, outside Zayn’s apartment, a bag slung across his back, his face bright. But it’s such a huge thing, Zayn feels like he might cry. He bites his lip. Niall grins.

“May I?”

Zayn opens the door wide and moves aside. “Come in.”

Niall pushes in and drops his bag on the floor as Zayn shuts the latch.

“That’s done, then. Home.”

He turns and in an instant, Zayn is pinned against the wood of the door. Niall’s lips are pressed against his throat, teasing the artery there, his teeth sharp and grazing and familiar. Zayn grabs at his shoulders, at the fabric of his coat, and inhales deeply.

Niall always smells so good. Like cotton and musk and outside and maybe a hint of sunlight, which seems impossible. But it’s just Niall.

Niall is pressing kisses to his collar, around to the other side of his neck, up to his ear, mumbling.

“Jesus. Teeth didn’t waste any time.” He runs the point of a canine along the soft part of Zayn’s ear. It feels amazing. Zayn breathes out, hard and shaky.

“I missed you so much.”

“I know. You’re a mess.”

“I cleaned up for you.”

“Sure you did, babe.” He pulls back and looks Zayn in the eye, holding him against the door like he’s afraid he’ll slip away again. Like he wants to drink every part of him in. “You got anything to eat?”

Zayn is nodding. He reaches out and taps Niall’s chest, lightly. “Yeah.”

“Rather just eat you, honestly, but a man’s got to survive.”

He lets Zayn go, his hands lingering on the fabric of his tee shirt, tugging, then allowing him to slip away. Zayn hears him moving around the room as he walks to the kitchen and retrieves something to eat. The sound of boxes sliding across the floor, the zippery tear of strapping tape being pulled off of cardboard.

“Sick.” It’s a near whisper. Zayn makes a face in the cold dark of the kitchen.

He lights the stove and puts the kettle on, which he hasn’t done in ages and it’s already better, isn’t it? The world is already finding its equilibrium.

He hears the soft thump of a needle hitting a record and then music. Niall’s put on the Velvet Underground record. The one he sent over from New York.

“I’m going to organize all of this!”

Zayn isn’t sure if he means the records, or the shelf full of old notebooks, or the laserdiscs stacked in the corner, or maybe Zayn’s entire life. Probably all of that at the same time.

He lets the blood steep, warming in the hot water, until it feels right, then he pulls a couple mugs down from the cupboard. He grabs for Niall’s without thinking, which makes him smile, and he divies the warm blood between them. The mug was nearly new the last time they’d seen each other and Zayn remembers Niall pressing it into his hands, earnest and insistent, like he was entrusting Zayn with the crown jewels or something. _“If you lose this I swear to jesus mary and joseph...just..._ promise _me.”_

He walks through the door to the living room and is met with blinding flash. It’s so jarring that he nearly spills blood everywhere. There’s a metallic clunk and a whir and Niall is laughing.

“Oh god, your face. Sorry!”

“Why?...jesus. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Niall is holding his camera in one hand. With the other, he tugs the print out of the front and shakes it.

“Ha. Heart attack. Good one. Right. You’re a funny guy.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. There’s a bit of confused shuffling as Niall sets the camera down on the table and tosses the photo aside. Zayn can see the picture emerging, colors and shapes forming in a field of sepia. He holds the mug out and Niall smiles as he takes it, holding it with both hands like a child nursing some cocoa.

“Did you say ‘sick’ just a minute ago?”

“Yeah. Get with the times, bro.”

“I just got used to ‘aces’. I can’t keep up.”

“You’ll get it. We’ll make flash cards or something.” He turns to the window and peeks out at the street. “Christ that’s a lot of snow. You weren’t kidding about cold.”

He brings the mug up to drink and inspects the label. His face lights up.

“Aw, babe. You kept it.”

“Of course I kept it. It’s yours.”

“May 1986. I wish you would’ve come. Fuck. You would love Reykjavík. I know you’re not keen on football but you woulda loved the views. It’s like an alien world. That’s where we should go maybe this time.”

Zayn shrugs and bumps Niall’s shoulder with his own. They sip at the blood and look out the window and Zayn’s head fills with warmth and softness and everything feels good and new. The glow of the streetlights on the snow is ethereal. It sparkles.

Niall sips at his mug.

“Is this the hunk blood?”

“What?”

“The blood from the hunk. The one with the rolled up sleeves and the pectorals and such. The hunk.”

Zayn laughs. “Um...yeah. This is from the hospital.”

“Are you stocked? Like do you need to get more soon? Can I come? I’d love to meet him. We should ask him around. We should go to his DJ night! Zayn _we should make a friend_ it’s been so long and I’ve never been to Stocklholm and I want you to show me EVERYTHING.”

“Ok.”

“Okay? Wow, that was easy. Maybe I _should_ be jealous.”

Zayn shrugs. “Like you said, he’s a hunk.” He tries to dodge a punch to the soft flesh of his bicep but Niall is too quick. He’s always been so bloody quick. “Come sit with me.”

They move to the couch and Zayn sets his mug down. He sweeps a mess of papers and books off the leather cushions and onto the floor.

“Thanks for tidying.” Niall laughs and sits down on top of a wool scarf. “I really appreciate it.”

Zayn grabs at the scarf, trying to tug it out from under him.

“Shut up. I just--” Niall is laughing fondly.

“Baaaabe. I’m kidding. I love it. I’ll clean up tomorrow. Just like I always do.” He sets his mug on the table next to Zayn’s and reaches out, grabbing at his wrist and pulling until he’s unbalanced. They fall back in a heap and Niall sighs, running his hands over Zayn’s sides and his neck and his hair and down to his thighs, like he’s trying to remember his shape, or checking that he’s still all there.  Zayn buries his face in Niall’s neck. It’s warm from the blood, almost hot, and it feels so soft. Zayn wants to touch every part of him.

“I want to touch every part of you.”

“Alright. I’m game. Let’s do.”

Zayn presses his mouth to Niall’s, hard and hungry and insistent, and Niall kisses him right back. His mouth is so soft and pliant and Zayn feels the hard edge of Niall’s teeth on his lip and that hits him down in his middle, at the end of his spine. Niall makes a small noise and grips Zayn’s hips, pressing up into him. He gasps against the curve of Niall’s jaw. He feels undone. It’s all so immediate and it’s been so fucking long since he’s touched _anyone_ and it’s Niall. He’s touching Niall.

They stay that way for a while, quietly rediscovering each other. They undress slowly, giving time to all the parts of each other they’ve missed for so long. Niall turns them over and they nearly fall off the couch, giggling uncontrollably. He works his mouth over Zayn’s collarbones, the dip in his chest just above his stomach. The space between his hip bones. Zayn takes his time with Niall, counting his toes and fingers and pressing each one to his lips while Niall bites at his own hand and tries not to laugh or jerk away. He spends ten minutes getting reacquainted with the scar over Niall’s knee, running his finger and then his tongue over the ridge of smooth flesh, then moves up and bites at the jut of his hip. Niall is gasping and laughing and gripping at Zayn’s hair, tugging at it mindlessly.

“This is...”

“mmmm.” Zayn hums against him. He grazes his teeth over his middle. Along the hair that trails down over his stomach.

“This is really nice. We should do a lot of this.”

“Yeah alright.”

Niall works his hand in Zayn’s hair, watching him move.

“I like...I remember every part of you. Like every nook and cranny. I can see you so bloody clear in my mind. But now you’re here it’s like I’m afraid to look away.”

“So don’t.”

Zayn slides down and takes Niall’s cock in his mouth. It’s warm with blood and smooth and it’s so familiar and it’s so human he wants to cry. He wants to stay like this forever. Niall grunts and bucks upward.

“Oh my god. This is...why do I ever leave? What the fuck is wrong with me?”

 

**

 

They stay that way for another hour, tangled in each other, their hands and mouths moving everywhere, until the sun peeks through the shades and they start to feel sick with it. Zayn pulls Niall off the couch and as he stands, he glances down at the table and sees the polaroid. The picture is clear now, a splash of color in the dark. He sees himself, framed by a doorway, moving forward. He’s got a mug in each hand-- _Iceland Triangle Tournament Champions, 1986_ \--and his hair is a mess. He looks like a kid just out of uni, freshly woken from a nap. He reaches down and touches the surface of the photo. He feels floored. He hasn’t seen himself in years.

Niall looks down and smiles.

“It’s a good one.” He steps forward, pressing himself against Zayn again, spinning him around and moving him toward the bedroom. “You look happy.”

“I look so young.”

“You are, babe.” He presses his lips to the back of Zayn’s neck. “We both are. Starting now.”

They try to stay awake as long as they can, tangled in each other. Everything fits. Every part of Zayn slots into every part of Niall and he’s not sure where he ends and Niall begins. He knows that it won’t always be a good thing. He knows things change, but right now, at this moment, it feels right and it feels new and like the oldest thing on earth.

The sun working at him, pulling him down into the dark. He clutches at Niall, tugging him closer.

“Don’t go. Stay. Stay with me. Make me better.”

“I’m not leaving, babe.” His voice is a whisper. “I’m here. I’ll stay as long as you can stand me.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
